Celebrate the end of summer with a poetry reading in Bryant Park, hosted by the Whiting Foundation and Word for Word.
Featuring 2018 Whiting Award winner for poetry, Rickey Laurentiis, Whiting 1999 winner Terrance Hayes, Whiting 2015 winner Jenny Johnson, and poet Sharon Dolin.
The reading will take place in Bryant Park's outdoor Reading Room. The Reading Room is located on the northwestern side of Bryant Park, closer to 42nd Street. Look for outdoor seating and a podium off to the side of the main lawn.
Books by the poets will be available for purchase. This event is free and open to the public.
In case of rain, events are held under a tent at the Reading Room. In case of severe weather, please check bryantpark.org for the indoor location.
Sharon Dolin is the author of six books of poetry, including MANUAL FOR LIVING, WHIRLWIND, and BURN AND DODGE. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Denver Quarterly, The Georgia Review, and others. She has been awarded the distinguished 2013 Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress. She teaches poetry workshops at Poets House in New York City.
Terrance Hayes is the author of five collections, including HOW TO BE DRAWN, a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award and the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award. His honors include a United States Artists Zell Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship. His latest collection, AMERICAN SONNETS FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN, was published by Penguin Books in June 2018.
Jenny Johnson’s first collection, IN FULL VELVET, was published in 2017 by Sarabande. Her poems appear in The Best American Poetry 2012, Troubling the Line: Trans & Genderqueer Poetry & Poetics, New England Review, and others. Johnson was the recipient of the Beloit Poetry Journal’s Chad Walsh Poetry Prize for her poem Aria. Johnson lives in Pittsburgh.
Rickey Laurentiis was raised in New Orleans. BOY WITH THORN, his debut book, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Levis Reading Prize, and was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His other honors include fellowships from the Lannan Literary Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Foundation. He lives in Pittsburgh, where he is the inaugural Fellow in Creative Writing at the CAAPP.